


we've all got our vices

by daxsymbiont



Category: Academia RPF, Unspeakable Conversations
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 16:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3735814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daxsymbiont/pseuds/daxsymbiont
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What, so I’m one of those little ticky-boxes on your holiday checklist? Right after the plumber and the mailman?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	we've all got our vices

**Author's Note:**

> Look, just read [Unspeakable Conversations](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/unspeakable-conversations.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm) and then get back to me.

“Hey,” he says. “Merry Christmas.”

She stops breathing for a moment. Closes her eyes, berates herself for the cliché, struggles to regain her bearings. The entire family is in the other room. You don’t do this, not so close to a boisterous Southern gathering – not that she’s doing anything – I mean, you don’t feel like this, don’t feel your loyalty to home and family and The Movement curdling away. Don’t feel your resolve _snap_ , this close to the sounds of Christmas cheer.

“We’re both atheists,” she says in return. It’s the kind of dry, obvious statement he might like, she thinks. Let me wrap that up and stick a bow on it for you.

He huffs out a laugh. She hears a rustle, the phone shifting around. “I know,” he says. “It was an appeal to tradition, I guess –”

She suddenly remembers it’s 4 AM in Melbourne. Fuck, Peter, you just _had_ to go and make this that much less okay.

His voice is hesitant. “I thought you deserved a call. I’m sorry. Was it the wrong thing?”

“ _Deserve_?” she says, and laughs, hoping he can hear that it’s genuine amusement and not mockery. She’ll never get tired of his unfortunate word choice. “What, so I’m one of those little ticky-boxes on your holiday checklist? Right after the plumber and the mailman?”

Silence – and then he laughs again, but it’s more of a groan. “Harriet, come _on_.”

Cut the crap, he seems to be saying. Cut what crap, Peter? Exactly which layer of the bullshit that surrounds us do you want me to remove? We’ve got a lot of choices, here.

“Okay,” she says. The tenderness creeps its way into her voice, unintended and unbidden. “Okay. You miss me.”

She could’ve sworn she planned different words to come out, there.

Peter exhales. “I miss you,” he echoes.

I don’t miss you, too, she thinks. You haven’t e-mailed me in months, she thinks – petty. Nagging – what a misogynistic word, but attractive in its domesticity. Can I nag at you, Peter? Change your shirt. When was the last time you ate? When was the last time you pulled your head out of your ass and looked a disabled person straight in the eye?

Probably the last time we talked, she thinks.

Shit. There’s more fumbling on the other end – she imagines him surrounded by wrapping paper, the detritus of a family celebration similar to hers. She imagines him lying on the couch downstairs, head and feet ensconced in piles of gift wrap, holding the phone in one hand. (Downstairs? She has no idea what his house looks like.) There’s a Christmas cracker resting on his stomach, a pile of candy, or something – he’s stuck in a _memento mori_. A cautionary parody of excess. He’s despondent without her.

Of course; of course. It’s not like he has a life, or a fulfilling career, or anything.

It’s not like you do, too.

“You still there?” he asks, and his voice is quiet, like he doesn’t care about the answer.

“I love you,” she says.

She hears him drop the phone. His sharp intake of breath, and then a muffled curse and the rustling – he’s dropped it into the papers, the _vanitas_ arrangement. She resists the urge to cackle at the mental image, at her own made-up setting. If she can’t stop his torture of her, she will sure as hell torture him back.

“Jesus, Harriet,” says a barely-recovered Peter. “I could’ve woken the whole house.”

“And you’re calling me in the dead of night because…?”

“Point. I keep forgetting you’re a lawyer.”

“I keep forgetting you want me dead,” she says.

“Oh, you _want_ to talk about that again?”

She feels the grin slip onto her face, widening with each word, and she’s helpless to stop it. Arrogant fucking bastard. “Sure,” she says. “Let’s have at it, then. Hit me with your best shot.”

A pause, and his voice in response is far too warm for her liking. “Harriet, are you coming on to me?” Almost a purr, that.

Oh, no, I wasn’t. But now that you mention it – you’re so terribly mobile, Peter, it seems a shame to waste it – your hands, they’ve got such mobility compared to mine –

For the love of God, don’t say that aloud.

“Absolutely not,” she says, but her mouth is dry.

“Liar,” he says bluntly. It takes her a second to process the word before she laughs.

“I’m hanging up the phone now,” she says. “I’m going to get Carmen, and ask her to take the phone, and put it back.”

There’s silence as he no doubt tries to visualize how she holds the phone. Wedged between her ear and shoulder? Well, sort of, Peter. There’s a lot you’ll never know about me.

He sighs. “You won’t respond to my accusation, then?”

“What, about being a liar? Sure, I’m a liar. I lied. I plead guilty. I’m a liar, and you want to kill babies. We’ve all got our vices, Peter.”

His voice is so soft she almost can’t hear it. “I love you, too,” he says.

_Click._

Damn it.

She sits there for a full five minutes before she can muster up the strength to yell for Carmen.


End file.
